Would like to get some feedback from folks that have experience with different brands of winches. Just curious why it seems that Warn winches are 2 to 3 times as costly than some other brands. Is there a good reason for this? Is a Warn winch that much BETTER than other brands? I don't really know anything about winches, so any enlightenment would be appreciated.

this is what I wrote in another thread. Honestly I cringe every time I help unspool and hook up a non-warn winch, most of them suck in comparison.

Quote:

Originally Posted by J Kimmel

lots of folks buying the cheap winches and they're fine for occasional use but...seems like every one I see in use is incredibly slow and struggles with most loads. You get what you pay for with winches imo

I've got a Warn 9.5 XP, best winch I've ever owned. When you need a fast reliable pull when someone is upside down or in a precarious spot you don't really think about what you spent.

The general "problem" with inexpensive winches is the solenoids give out and the winch will no longer operate. I've also seen the control switch/cable go bad too. When someones truck is stuck in a potentially dangerous position, or you are on a less frequently used trail, and the winch stops working, it can be a long walk home. If the people you typically wheel with all have winches, maybe you can get by with a cheep one. If it's just you, or you are the more experienced one in the group, it's worth having good tools.

1.) It was a great price on amazon when I purchased it. It was less money than a warn 8k and over half as cheap as the 9.5xp.
2.) The quality seemed to be quite high for the money, and it had gotten good reviews from a number of folks that I know.
3.)It had one of the lowest amp draws of comparable winches. I only run (and only plan to run) one battery so that was fairly important. 350 Amps Motor Draw / 6.4 FPM at 9k lbs compared to the 9.5xp that pulls 480amps at 9.5k.
4.) The solenoids are supposed to be fairly high quality, though I don't have much first hand knowledge about different types/brands of solenoids.

To be honest I haven't used it much. I don't wheel every day, so it was more of the insurance factor for the occasional stuck.

Good luck on your purchase!

One thing I would mention, if you end up with wire rope, take a good hard look at what the Working Load Limit for that cable is. In the case of my superwinch, with ~5/16 steel cable, it had a WLL of 980kg. Depending on if you use a 4 or 5:1 safety factor, that means the cable could break at 8624lbs-10780lbs. And thats for a brand new cable, not one that has been dinged up and dragged through the dirt. So I pretty much immediatly bought a synthetic line that had a breaking strength around 20,000 lbs.

First off, if you really are comparing apples to apples in quality winches, Warn units are not 2-3 times more expensive. A comparable model of a Ramsey winch (also high quality) is within a few dollars of a comparable Warn.

There are 1 or 2 other brands out there that are starting to build a reputation for being decent quality, like the ones that Four Wheel Parts sells.

Stay away from the el cheapo totally off brand units out there including the ones from Harbor Freight. If you buy a 12,000 winch from HF there is no doubt in my mind it will probably work OK for awhile. But when it breaks (not if) it may leave you stranded in a dangerous situation and it amy be tough to get parts and get it repaired.

Good point above-my experiences have been about 3:1 in winch urgency, one out of 4 being a more intense "get the winch now" situation. The other 75% a little more casual, with time to set up, consider alternatives, even use it as a training opportunity. Multiply that by a few times per year, for me it's only been a couple of times when I was damn glad I had a warn m12k.

Now onto my next truck, and a mellower build, I went with one of the cheaper brands. So far it is holding down the garage floor just as good as a warn would (patented Corsair mod protocol) but I hope to get it hooked up in the next 4-6 weeks... The numbers compared to warn are comparable, but until I get a real world experience who knows. Another reason to not go out alone... until I see it run I don't trust it like I would a warn.

We are die hard Warn winch fans and until recently it was the only winch we offered. However we are also now offering the TJM winches as an alternative. They have a lot of attractive features and are good value for the $'s. Might be worth a look.